IT’S getting harder and harder to tell Labour and the Tories apart.
Keir Starmer is dragging his party ever further to the right, as welcoming hard-right MP Natalie Elphicke into the fold proved.
Sure, Elphicke has been rabid on immigration – and defended her ex-husband to the hilt even as he was found guilty on multiple counts of sexual assault. Apparently he was just “attractive, and attracted to, women”.
Forget all that – and the rest – she’s a “good, natural fit” for Labour, according to the party’s chair.
Elphicke wasn’t even the first Tory MP to defect to Labour since Easter. Former minister Dan Poulter hopped over in late April.
READ MORE: John Swinney addresses ending 'minister for independence' role
With Starmer doing such a great job of making Labour look like the right party for Tory MPs to join, is it any wonder that some of us get a little confused about which is which?
That certainly seems to have happened to one journalist at Sky News, who labelled Anas Sarwar the “Scottish Tory leader” on Thursday.
Sharing a clip from First Minister’s Questions showing Sarwar asking for “fresh leadership”, Sky News wrote: “‘After being at the heart of every single SNP failure for the past 17 years, why does John Swinney think Scotland should accept more of the same?’ – asks Scottish Tory leader @AnasSarwar.
“@JohnSwinney replies: ‘The fresh leadership has just arrived'.”
Despite Sarwar’s millionaire background, opposition to progressive taxation, and anti-democratic stance on whether the people of Scotland should be allowed to vote on independence, he is not technically in the Scottish Conservatives.
But the Jouker can understand why you’d think he was.
Noticing the slip, SNP MP Steve Bonnar quipped it was a “wee Freudian slip from Sky News”.
He added: “Labour = Tory.”
Another user asked: “Has he also crossed the floor?”
Sarwar won’t need to formally join the Tories. Starmer is taking Labour so far to the right that they occupy the same political space anyway.
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